Sensational Science: Why It’s a Great Time to be in Science

by Nick Fahrenkopf

At a regional Post-Doc Association meeting last week a speaker announced that this is an amazing time to be in science- a terrible time to try to get into academia- but an amazing time for science. So, this month for Sensational Science I’d like to do a little something different. Instead of pointing out the comical headlines (“Super-Small Transistor Created: Artificial Atom Powered by Single Electrons” – what, exactly, is an “artificial atom?”) I wanted to draw your attention to a handful of really interesting – if not sensational – true, accurate, science discoveries.

The Study: Single-cell Biological Lasers

The Twist: This one seemed pretty far-fetched to me at first, and as I read about this green fluorescent protein, I wondered if maybe some physicists had stumbled upon GFP for the first time. And indeed GFP is the source of the laser, but they were able to concentrate the fluorescence such that you could legitimately call what came out of the cell a beam, and a laser beam. The cell still need an excitation laser to generate its beam, but this still seems pretty cool.

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The Study: Nicotine Decreases Food Intake Through Activation of POMC Neurons

The Twist: This one also had all the makings of an exaggerated news article with great human interest pieces: obesity and tobacco use. I expected some sort of sociological study on why people eat more, but instead the study in the literature has a great neurobiological study on the specific receptors and neurons that are influenced by nicotine. The researchers lay out how these actions lead to the feeling of being full and the body starting to use energy stores. Further, when smokers quit these pathways are no longer activated so the ex-smokers feel like they need to eat more. Science really did figure this one out.

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The Study: Wafer-Scale Graphene Integrated Circuit

The Twist: Usually, the title of a blog post serves to get you excited enough to read. Indeed, this title has all the sensational aspects “wonder material” and “smaller than a grain of salt.” For me, from an institution that does a lot of research on graphene, the title of the Science paper grabbed my attention more than the title of the blog post. While graphene may be a wonder material, the issue has long been wafer scale fabrication of graphene devices- typically researchers make flakes of graphene randomly on a wafer and build the device around that flake. Much research has been going into wafer level graphene growth with some recent success. So to hear that IBM has make circuits out of wafer-scale graphene- that’s pretty cool. (As a side note, please don’t ever be impressed by circuits smaller than a “grain of salt” which is what- millimeters? Micrometers was impressive decades ago, nanometers is impressive- not millimeters!)

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The Study: Scaling Up Digital Circuit Computation with DNA Strand Displacement Cascades

The Twist: As someone who works with DNA, these articles always catch my attention. But unlike the DNA origami that the Army enlisted is interested in, or the DNA used to make next-generation computers NaTI lattices that I’ve reported on in the past, these researchers have actually been able to compute square roots. Granted, it takes hours, is limited to numbers less than 15, and needs to round down to the nearest whole number- but doing calculations with biomolecules? That’s impressive!

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The Study: Discovery of Novel Intermediate Forms Redefines the Fungal Tree of Life

The Twist: It’s not often that you hear about scientists discovering entirely new forms of life (and yes, I’m saying that tongue-in-arsenic-containing-cheek.) Again, comparing the titles you’ll note that the title of the Nature paper isn’t significantly less sensational than the PopSci post. And rightfully so- for so long scientists figured they had seen the major different kinds of fungi, but it appears these new organisms might be so unlike other fungi… that they might not even be accurately listed as fungi. It appears that fungal research is a pretty hopping area!

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While I’ve been having fun pointing out some silly science headlines, I hope that this month I’ve shown that there really are some amazing discoveries happening out there. But, if you’re really looking for another ridiculous headline consider: Intel Debuts First 3-D Transistor for New ‘Ivy Bridge’ Chip and compare to this replica of the first transistor ever made. The one made back in 1947 looks suspiciously three dimensional to me so this one made in 2011… probably not the first 3-D transistor.

Nick Fahrenkopf is a Ph.D. candidate studying nanobiosciences- applying physics and engineering concepts and techniques to biological and medical problems. Outside of his research he enjoys curling, and resists the urge to dig too far into the science behind it. Always skeptical, he enjoys debunking email chains and digging deeper into popular science articles and blog posts. Follow his most random thoughts on science on Twitter.